I AM STILL ALIVE

Haven't updated in ages. played my first solo show on saturday since the warrington one in June. Was great to be travelling on my own again and playing shows solo, ok lincoln wasn't exactly far to travel to but it felt good folding my mini comic on the train there. Really enjoyed playing apart from when annoying girl (who tried to be an extra member of every fucking band that played) shouted something about the toothbrush i was using just to hold something in place. sorry the toothbrush didn't make any novel sounds it was purely a weighty functional object that stopped tape getting caught and it was all i had to hand when i needed something so it just stuck. Just have more respect for the people who paid £5 to come to the show and may have wanted to listen and watch, if your not going to show any respect to any of the bands that is. infact just go to a club in the future where there aren't live bands playing.
anyway I was supporting coughs and I really enjoyed them, probably show of the year infact it was that good.
I also played in designer babies the next night in nottingham but it was really load and i couldn't always hear what i was doing and the songs seemed so much louder than in the practice we had and i felt quite lost at times but some bits worked and it was just another experience and a chance to play with different peoiple and learn things and also i got to see coughs again for free which was great as they where fantastic again and quite different even though they played quite a similar set (mainly secret passage stuff i think). i wanted to hear more off fright makes right but in a way it didn't matter, it should be about playing the hits and what people know, they are probabkly fed up of playing 3 year old songs it must be good to have a bunch of new songs and a new sound. They were all very nice people, its a shame they are splitting up this month as I can't really think of another band like them. I'm just so glad i saw them before they split. It'w weird when you really want to see a band and then you see that someone is trying to book them and then the date approaches and then passes and its gone and thats that, i'm glad it made such an impression. i feel like i will have strong fond memories of my weekend with coughs. this is just such a short part of everyone's life. It seemed like this nottingham coughs show was booked ages ago and i've been looking forward to it for so long and now its gone but at least my experiences where better than i could ever have imagined. opening two nights in a row for a band i really like who are coming to an end of there 5 year existance and then what next...
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i wrote this the other day but for some reason it wouldn't show up. hopefully it will today

maybe this is more personal than about 'stables'I'm moving soon, i am staying in nottingham for another week although my stuff is going home tomorrow. i have bought a new large rucksack as after 12 years my other one is starting to split, i worry about carrying my laptop in it and it falling out on the floor. I have so much stuff, i am being selective about what to keep for the week, i don't really want to exceed my rucksack apart from the black bag i keep my laptop. carrying things is something i think about from time to time. When I played in London in they live! i took so much stuff and dragged itaround galleries in the day time, i found a picture of the set up i was using back then, i used alot of stuff. i used alot of stuff at the old angel gig and i took alot of leads spare. in derby i tried to mimimise my set up. constraints are interesting, being selective of what to use interests me alot. I sat and played my snare drum the other day just on its own and i had a piece of metal that is for resting utensils on a wok. the metal added so many possiblies to what sounds could be created and i am learning more about the possibilies of materials. exploring one things potential more that i used to. i used to just have loads of pedals and they would offen be in one chain, i don't play like that much anymore. maybe for guiatar, around christmas when i got the supershifter i was playing electric guiatar alot, my amp has been somewhere else so i have not been playing electric guitar. i have just been doing what i have to hand. i made a recording staright into my computer today because i found a cheap mic i'd never used. I'd like to do more pieces that are just using my mouth, alot of what i was doing could only be done because the mic signal was high so some of the sounds where of my breath........ the wind...... and bubbles from spit. i have been doing a thing recently were i make a tones with my voice box i guess and then a moisten my lips and limit the air flow, i am sort of then blowing a rasberry but the rasberry of my lips vibrating has a pitch too. at times i can harmonise the two sound but it doesn't last very long. i'd like to work on it so that i can do it for a long time. if i could learn circular breathing it would be incredible. i wouldn't need any equipment to tour with. i could travel with my bag and computer and video camera and perform only with my body. i would like to do this. maybe i shouldwhat i want to do unfolds so slowly and my mood can crush this.one day i want to catch, prepare, cook and eat a fish by a lakeand i want to make a recording of breaking wood up in a skip

maybe this is more personal than about 'stables'
I'm moving soon, i am staying in nottingham for another week although my stuff is going home tomorrow. i have bought a new large rucksack as after 12 years my other one is starting to split, i worry about carrying my laptop in it and it falling out on the floor. I have so much stuff, i am being selective about what to keep for the week, i don't really want to exceed my rucksack apart from the black bag i keep my laptop. carrying things is something i think about from time to time. When I played in London in they live! i took so much stuff and dragged itaround galleries in the day time, i found a picture of the set up i was using back then, i used alot of stuff. i used alot of stuff at the old angel gig and i took alot of leads spare. in derby i tried to mimimise my set up. constraints are interesting, being selective of what to use interests me alot. I sat and played my snare drum the other day just on its own and i had a piece of metal that is for resting utensils on a wok. the metal added so many possiblies to what sounds could be created and i am learning more about the possibilies of materials. exploring one things potential more that i used to. i used to just have loads of pedals and they would offen be in one chain, i don't play like that much anymore. maybe for guiatar, around christmas when i got the supershifter i was playing electric guiatar alot, my amp has been somewhere else so i have not been playing electric guitar. i have just been doing what i have to hand. i made a recording staright into my computer today because i found a cheap mic i'd never used. I'd like to do more pieces that are just using my mouth, alot of what i was doing could only be done because the mic signal was high so some of the sounds where of my breath........ the wind...... and bubbles from spit. i have been doing a thing recently were i make a tones with my voice box i guess and then a moisten my lips and limit the air flow, i am sort of then blowing a rasberry but the rasberry of my lips vibrating has a pitch too. at times i can harmonise the two sound but it doesn't last very long. i'd like to work on it so that i can do it for a long time. if i could learn circular breathing it would be incredible. i wouldn't need any equipment to tour with. i could travel with my bag and computer and video camera and perform only with my body. i would like to do this. maybe i should

what i want to do unfolds so slowly and my mood can crush this.

one day i want to catch, prepare, cook and eat a fish by a lake

and i want to make a recording of breaking wood up in a skip

So I played in derby two nights ago. something this constantly is coming up at performances is marking the end. the beginning is ok in a sense because it usually goes 'the DJ turns the sound down gradually to nothing, people become aware something is about to start, i start', thats usually pretty straight forward but recently i feel i've been trying to fuck around with peoples idea of when a performance ends. after the kraufort gig in january i felt like we hadn't really got going so when we stopped by 'both unplugging our output leads at the same time' it was silent, then i struggled with putting the lead back in. i had a loop going and i kept plugging and unplugging it in but my hand was quite shaky for some reason so i couldn't do it that rapidly. Jonathan anounced to the audience that we had finished but i stayed in the same position that i was in pretty much all the way through the performance. the dj begins to play sounds again and the audience back away. the promoter asks me 'had you finished?' and i think of a reply.

at the horn in hand last week when i played as a fill in for a band who were ill and was put on as headliner i was given the room/time to do what the hell i wanted. i could have probably played for an hour and not have been stopped and it was the longest performance i have done as stables(around 26 minutes). there was a period at this performance where i turned off my mixer so there was silent, from me at least, i then began to try and bow a cymbal which didn't really work because my bow is broken and slack. i tried for a while and eventually got a bit of a sound out of it. i went over to a mic that was set up for the earlier performers to sing into and i held the cymbal near it.

URGENCY
this has arose alot recently, a sense of urgency or at least abandoning it. I think talking to jonathan and patch has helped as i feel much less pressure to 'do something' at all times. at the horn in hand there was a period where I just stopped doing anything and sat on te floor away from the audience, i thought everyone had left or at least the few people there weren't even listening/ watching/ aware that i was still 'doing something'. i thought for a few moments, i can't remember whether i was happy or unhappy or uncomfortable or what. i made a decision that i didn't want the audiences attention anymore at that in a sense it was the end of the performance and i would be creating no more sounds for people to consiosly take in/listen to so i gentle stood up and walked backwards to a seat in the audience and sat next to an audience member. people clapped and a dj put sounds on and that was that. i stayed sat down for a few moment.

i am constantly thinking about the audiences decision to make a judgement of when to mark an ending. it is almost as if the end is when the first first clap is sounded, as if all sound before this was part of the performance as it seems the performance has ended so rather than show appreciation the clap acts as a signal for the audience to make there own sounds and get back to whatever they were doing before the performance started.

in derby two nights ago i was sure i was going to make an announcement at the beginning that i was going to perform two piece, one alone and one with patch, almost as a warning to not just get back to what they were doing before i started, after the first piece. i had told the promoter i was doing two pieces so she was aware of this. so after the solo piece i sort of half arsedly said 'ok so thats one', what a stupid thing to say, i hate music that is like an exercise video and i basically said thats what i had just done and now i'm going to do another exercise but with patch. we are both going to do an exercise. i was stupid, i have issues with directly talking to the audience and this is the problem, i guess i can hide behind the music i am producing but then i am angry when someone things i have finished before i have but then i don't adress this directly. this happens at all sorts off performances. i'm sure animal collective have a song that goes very quiet and then the audience clapped but then the song goes into another section. its embarresing. if you were to clap and then a band continue the song after 'their quiet bit' you'd look stupid, as if you didn't understand the music or something.

So me and patch are playing and i make the decision to stop doing direct feed back loops and switch over to a microphone on a snare drum. i pull out the lead which will stop the sound i am emitting and there is a sudden drop to near silence, patch's singing bowl is resonating. i am hoping that the mic picks up something but nothing happens, it wasn't till yesterday that i realised that nothing happens. we don't move, someone claps and thats it, its over because someone in the audience has come to the conclusion that because a sound stops it must be the end, but we haven't phyically moved or acknoledged an ended. the promoter knows i've had two claps so it must be over. the sounds play from the dj both and people turn away. me and patch then proceed to pack away in a performative like way. or at least i did. hmm

Today i was introduced to Sean Meehan by Patch from Good Anna. Patch told me he is going to try and put him on in Nottingham which will be interesting but i may miss it as i will have moved back to Barton. Some thing that interested me alot was a piece on his site where he had made handmade paper and embedded a cd inside. I have been making a lot of new material recently. just discovering things and putting it down on tape or minidisc. I finally got my computer fixed so I was able to put the stuff on it and burn a cd-r of 3 tracks that i made this weeks. I put them on a three inch cd-r and made my own paper. I have felt great today because i have been very active. i ripped up newspaper and put it in my wok, i then use my housemates blender and mashed up all the paper. i remember making paper when i was a child, i think i will get some jay clothes and a bamboo blind and do it the way i used to do it. i might embed text into the paper whiles it's setting. like track listings. I thought about making a book with the handmade paper with the cd in it as the cover and maybe stitch it on. the book would be about the songs. i guess they are songs. All i have on my computer is sound recorder and vincent larkin showed me how to extend the record time, thanks vincent. so it suite me fine because everything i do it pretty much straight to tape, mini disc, video camera or straight in on sound recorder. no over dubs or mastering, its not how i hear it when i make it. i'm liking this blog. I'm liking that i have come up with a set of things that document what i'm doing and hopefully people will come across it and be interested. So i guess i will make this book and CD, i think the songs need the book because i' going to write about how i came to make the sounds.

http://home.earthlink.net/~overturnedbowl/index_2.htm check this for where i ripped the paper idea from.

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